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A. New Evidence |
| 1. The AgnEf Seminar on 29/30.05.2000 in Stockholm |
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| 1.2.7 The sinking scenario |
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Upon request of AgnEf three well acknowledged experts, Professor Dracos Vassalos and Andrzej Jasionowski of the The Ship Stability Research Centre Department of Ship and Marine Technology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow/UK and Jan O. de Kat of MARIN, Delft/The Netherlands, did examine different sinking scenarios under different assumptions.
Professor Vassalos:
“A ship is a complex system, indeed an array of complex systems. In this respect, for a forensic investigation to succeed, the rigour demanded must be commensurate of this complexity.
A catastrophic accident comprises a chain of interlinked undesirable events. Therefore an attempt to understand the causal effects and the consequences of each must follow a thorough investigation of each of the key events, separately as well as part of the chain.
Simplistic analysis, e.g. static stability analysis, expert judgements and intuitive reasoning are not enough in themselves to help us unravel the mysteries of catastrophic accidents which more often than not are realisations of unforeseen scenarios.
Powerful investigative methods and numerical simulation tools are presently available, allowing us to conduct a systematic and thorough investigation of the ESTONIA accident to a convincingly high degree of detail and to effectively communicate the findings to all concerned. All we need is reliable facts.”
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Note: This was obviously either unknown or ignored by the JAIC:
By application of the above-mentioned power tools available to scientists, Jan de Kat and Andrzej Jasionowski have simulated a number of different scenarios based on various assumptions. The “objectives” of their investigations were:
“To develop an understanding of how the capsizing and sinking of the ‘Estonia’ could have taken place from a stability perspective, while accounting for the ship dynamics and progressive flooding under different scenarios by application of the state-of-the-art simulation tools.”
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Prior to commenting on the simulations the definitions for capsizing and sinking shall be explained.
“Capsizing: The rolling over beyond the point of positive righting energy [i.e. negative restoring moment] due to excessive excitation and/or loss of transverse stability.
Sinking: Foundering due to water ingress and loss of buoyancy at any given attitude.”
The Simulations:
Three main damage scenarios have been examined:
- water on car deck
- water below car deck
- water above and below car deck.
Superstructures:
- intact up to deck 7
- openings (doors, windows) in decks 4, 5, 6
Load conditions as per JAIC
List angle history as to time/heel. |
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Note: It has been revealed that the scientists took over the rather short “list angle history” of the JAIC; i.e. the first heel at 01.15 hrs. and vessel disappeared from the surface at 01.40 hrs., which has proved to be much too short. In fact, the first heavy heeling was already at 01.02 hrs. and the vessel disappeared from the radar screen of the nearest ferry “MARIELLA” at 01.48 hrs., i.e. 46 minutes later instead of 25 minutes. See Chapter 18 of this Update: “The interrogation of the JAIC Key Witness (Note: as to times) Silver Linde before a Finnish Court”, and Chapter 21.6 of our Report.
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Conclusions
Scenario (1) - water on car deck, no water below car deck
- If superstructure remains intact, ship will remain afloat with a steady list.
- With openings in the side of the superstructure i.w.o. decks 4, 5, 6 the ship will capsize very rapidly once flooding starts on the upper decks and the final condition will be upside down. There is no down flooding via the stair wells into the spaces below the car deck.
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Note: This is actually the JAIC scenario with broken windows i.w.o. decks 4, 5, 6 and down flooding, i.e. the simulation of scenario (1) which led to the above conclusions proved the scenario of the JAIC to be wrong because the JAIC states, that
- there was no water below the car deck respectively that the water reported by the survivors from deck 1 had been caused by down flooding, and
- several windows i.w.o. decks 4, 5, 6 were said to have been smashed in.
Under these conditions the vessel would have capsized immediately and remained afloat upside down. Since this evidently did not occur also the sinking scenario of the JAIC is wrong.
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Scenario (2) - water below car deck
- See the comments as to scenario (3), which do apply also to scenario (2) according to the scientist.
Scenario (3) – water above and below car deck
- Flooding of tank top and deck 1: sinkage.
- Flooding underneath and above car deck: sinking at a given heel angle is possible, depending on the amount of flooding below car deck.
- Watertight integrity of superstructure is critical.
- Sinking analysis by JAIC is incomplete.
- For the ship to heel to 90° and then sink without capsizing, the super-structure must have remained intact for some time and a large amount of water must have been present below the car deck.
- Down flooding from upper decks is unclear.
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Note: In summary of the investigation results presented by Jan de Kat and Andrzej Jasionowski it has to be concluded that the sinking scenario of the JAIC is erroneous, because with broken windows i.w.o. decks 4, 5, 6 and no water below the car deck the vessel would have capsized immediately and subsequently remained afloat in upside-down condition for an unspecified period of time. This is, in fact, the “Jan Heweliusz” scenario. This ferry capsized within a very short time due to wind pressure in combination with unevenly filled heeling tanks with no water below the car/railway deck and stayed afloat in upside-down condition for about 2 days. |
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